wretching

I helped a friend move about a week ago and when we were finished her new roommate was in the living room sitting with her laptop. We came around to her side and she unpaused the episode of "Californication" she had been watching.

I thought about this today because I just spent two lovely days in Lincoln and the moment I began walking up my front steps I began to cry. I tingled all over and my heart began beating powerfully against whatever bone and cartilage is between it and the rest of the universe (and honestly that space seems so profoundly expansive most days but filled with nothing but air and grief). I walked all the way up to my apartment and I sobbingly fed my cat and put my coat on the rack and used the restroom and then I sat on what was once our bed and I wept bitterly for almost twenty minutes. I got up and paced up and down the hallway - into the kitchen, through the hallway, into the office, back through the hallway so on so forth for about half an hour. The whole time I cried so hard I was squealing and snorting. I screamed at God. "What the fuck am I supposed to do now? I can't be alone." So I texted a few friends I knew were there when I needed them but no one answered or they couldn't hang out just then. "Why the fuck should I be alone?
I've been alone before. I've been miserable before."

And then I remembered the show my friend's roommate was watching and I remembered how what happened in the couple minutes I stayed to watch struck me so deeply I could barely function the rest of the night. I drove from the house to an empty cathedral parking lot that was nearby and I wrote down every word from the scene I just saw because the whole thing was coursing through my mind very, very loudly. It is somewhat cheesy just reading it but I was in such a tender place it sliced through me with ease.

Here's the scene:
David Duchovney and his ex-wife were discussing "what went wrong" for them. He has a pretty quick answer. Seemed like a rehearsed answer.

"I would say we loved each other too much. And I think we made the mistake of getting it right the first time, and that put an insane amount of pressure on us to keep it going. And…we buckled. You know what I miss most about – well, aside from our daughter, of course. I miss your smell."

"That’s it?"

"When you left, I couldn’t wash the sheets because I didn’t want to lose that completely — you. And it fucked me up for a long time because I would wake up and I’d smell you and I’d think you were there. And that would — my heart would break all over again. I think that’s why I go in for the kiss all the time and then cry myself back to sleep."

I fled immediately after he said that. As I walked down the back few steps I cried uncontrollably conceding the horrible truth that David Duchovney had gotten it indisputably correct. I still haven't washed the sheets and I still haven't taken down the water color paintings from the kitchen. Or the pheasant feather she picked up and carried as we walked through Boyer Chute - the last thing we did as a real couple, together. I am so stuck. I am so bound. I feel no freedom and no peace.

on deaf ears

I discovered this amazing curriculum for teaching comic book writing. Drawing Words and Writing Pictures was conceptualized and written by the two series editors for Best American Comics, Jessica Abel and Matt Madden. I really want to some day teach this at the downtown library possibly or at the amazing Kent Bellows Studio here in Omaha. I also stumbled across this amazing comic book store in Los Angeles called Meltdown where these four dudes, who work in "the industry" and have a successful movie discussion podcast called Down In Front, are doing this live DVD commentary on Raiders of the Lost Ark. Holy shit. No kidding, this is one of the best ideas I have ever heard.

I am trying to rack my brains on how to make something like this work in Omaha. We have the film community (speaking of which the Omaha Film Festival is happening as we speak), we have witty and gregarious folk who could easily do a credible and entertaining commentary, and we have people who would attend such a thing. Oh wait. That last one. There's the rub. Getting people to break their bar routine or attend something that isn't heralded as the chicest event since last year's fashion week is like pulling all their teeth out and then punching them in the face repeatedly while pressing both knees into their chest while they writhe on the ground, bloodied and without companions. Where are your accusers? Right here. This city has got a serious problem supporting the talent within its own blocks.

You can read my wrap up of the Encyclopedia Show for Omahype.com here and see that even something as brilliant as that is not worth most Omahans' time. Tragic. Simply another reason why Omaha sometimes makes one ponder the usefulness of one's efforts. It seems there has to be great amounts of spectacle and pomp to gather a crowd. I feel as though grassroots doesn't work quite as well here anymore. I want to be proven wrong. This year, or maybe this year and next year, will be the years of accomplishment and movement. ONWARD!